A memoir about former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) time in office is to be published on Thursday, in which Ma touts his national development achievements and recognizes his mistakes during his eight years as president from 2008 to 2016.
The memoir, published by Taipei-based Commonwealth Publishing Co, was written by Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑), who was the Presidential Office deputy secretary-general during the Ma administration, and is based on Ma’s oral accounts.
In the preface, Ma said that he was lucky to be elected twice, showing the trust of Taiwanese.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
Since leaving office, he said that he has faced both enthusiastic sympathy and serious criticism from the public while visiting places across the nation, which prompted him to record what he experienced during his presidency as a form of self-reflection, and to assume responsibility for history.
However, he can say with a clear conscience that he was always a president with integrity, who loved his people and was hard-working, Ma said.
“However, there was indeed room for improvement in the drafting and implementation of some [of my] policies. I shall shoulder the criticism of the people,” he said in the book, adding that one can only stick their chest out again after they bow in humility.
Ma said the signing of accords with Japan and the Philippines settling fishery disputes that had existed for more than four decades was one of the most satisfactory things he achieved during his presidency.
The most regrettable thing during his presidency was the Sunflower movement of 2014, which resulted in the cross-strait service trade agreement being shelved, greatly jeopardizing Taiwan’s economic development, he said.
The book also contains a chapter about the “judicial persecution” he has faced after leaving the Presidential Office, as well as one that talks about his interactions with his predecessors and successor.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiao-kuang
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS